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Keith Raniere, the guru of the NXIVM sex slave sect, that were burned with his initials, he was sentenced on Tuesday to 120 years in prison by a judge of New York.
The sentence was pronounced after five hours of hearing in the federal court of Brooklyn, during which 15 victims testified against Raniere, 60, including a woman identified only as “Camila” who said she was forced to have sex with him since she was 15 years old.
“I was a girl (…) He stole my youth,” declared Camila, now 30 years old. “He manipulated me for his own pleasure,” he added. “He expected me to be sexually available all the time.”
His testimony was the surprise of the audience. Camila did not testify during Raniere’s trial in June last year, at the end of which the defendant was found guilty of seven crimes, including sexual exploitation of a 15-year-old adolescent, extortion, and criminal association.
The other victims present in the hearing described him as a “predator”, a “monster”, “a sadistic and pathological mentor”.
His lawyer, Marc Agnifilo, tried to argue that the victims may have changed their way of seeing their relationships with the guru.
“It is clear that he took advantage of people sexually,” replied Judge Nicholas Garaufis.
“No regrets”
The sentence marks the end of the journey of a man with an extraordinary power of persuasion, still venerated by dozens of people despite the accusations against him.
Established in 1998 in Albany, the New York state capital, NXIVM (pronounced Nexium) offered exorbitantly priced self-help courses and had centers in various cities in the United States, Mexico, Canada, and other countries.
In 2015, Raniere created a second pyramidal parallel organization, dubbed DOS, which had about 15 to 20 sex “slaves” and “mistresses.” Slaves were to have sexual intercourse when the “Great Master” wanted it, one of Raniere’s nicknames.
Some “slaves” they were branded with a symbol representing his initials.
In a letter written before sentencing, Raniere insisted on his innocence and said he was “proud of the work” of his life. He showed no regrets and said he “never” intentionally harmed anyone.
All sexual relations with members of his sect were consensual, he claimed.
After hearing the testimonies of the victims, he suggested that they were lying, while saying he regretted “the pain, the anger” they expressed.
“I did not want to cause that pain”, but “I have no regrets for the accusations, they are not fair,” he said.
The prosecutor requested the life imprisonment Because beyond the seriousness of the facts, Raniere did not show “any empathy for his victims” and “will continue to commit crimes if he is released.”
The defense expected a sentence limited to 15 years in prison.
“The 120 years imposed are commensurate with the horrible crimes he committed,” said prosecutor Seth DuCharme after the hearing. “I hope the sentence allows the victims and their families to turn the page.”
Heiress and actress
Five other people were charged in the case, all of whom pleaded guilty to avoid trial.
One of them, the heir to the Seagram distillery empire, the Canadian Clare Bronfman, she was sentenced on September 30 to more than six years in prison.
The others, including the actress Allison mack and Nxivm co-founder Nancy Salzman, are still awaiting sentencing.
The NXIVM scandal is the subject of two television and film adaptations: a documentary series, “The Vow”, on HBO, and a Lisa Robinson film, “Escaping the Nxivm Cult” (Escaping the cult). Nxivm), from 2019, on the testimony of a mother who tried to free her daughter from the sect.
In Mexico, Raniere’s partner was Emiliano Salinas, son of former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari.
In a message posted on Twitter during the guru’s trial, Salinas said that he dissociated himself from NXIVM “immediately” in early 2018, when an acquaintance involved in the sect told him about the “atrocities” suffered.
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